Re:Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo
by deadc0de on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @01:26AM
(#15025146)
You're missing the point that there is a positive feedback loop at the source of the problem. The reason that women (or minorities for that matter) don't get into some fields of STEM is because there are no role models that tell them it's a good idea to do so. So there is a chicken and egg problem, and the only way do break the cycle is to give priority to such minorities. Is it fair to the members of the majority? Perhaps not. But in the end, I believe, it will justify the investment. Consider it a small price to pay for the millennia of oppression.
Re:Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo
by ThomPete on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @06:14AM
(#15026304)
No there isn't positive feedback loop at the source problem and no giving priority to minorities does not make any sense. You don't have to. There is enough fight over the talent that anyone who actually has talent will get a job.
Having worked in tech for 20 years and hired and fired all sorts of people I am unconvinced there is a problem in tech as big as it's being claimed.
The idea that you can only have role models if they are your gender is really really absurd and if people are really falling for that then they have a problem not the tech-scene.
There is no actual evidence that diversity in gender does anything for a company besides creating more complex work environments. There are far more important types of diversity to strive for.
I said that hiring on diversity over merit was wrong. That's it... I never said anything about sex in terms of merit. The only place any discussion of sex or diversity belongs is in terms of messaging and in terms of possibly promoting jobs that are disproportionate to natural propensity towards a given role.
If you can't discuss, review, document, test or otherwise examine bias in terms of nature, environment, upbringing, educational exposure and other factors, then you can't force equilibrium at the end of a long process.
You can't hire 50% women in an industry, where only 20% of those educated for that field are women. Also, so long as choosing a field of study or work is voluntary, the best you can do is maybe have a more fair representation of a given gender in a given field that doesn't show only above average looking women wearing glasses with a few geeky quirks, then relegate them to more personality quirks, or make them less capable over time.
And MAYBE it's okay to have a field where most of the people in that field are of a given sex. I don't see the SJWs trying to get women into garbage collection, or throwing a fit over the gender bias in nursing.